This device is based on the original open source uCurrent design by Dave Jones from eevblog.

The µCurrent page even specifies OSHW and Creative Commons BY/SA (attribution, share-alike) so clone is mostly okay—they could use to identify their own source files, unless they're identical to the µCurrent. Open Source in action ... yay.

This device is based on the original open source uCurrent design by Dave Jones from eevblog.

The µCurrent page even specifies OSHW and Creative Commons BY/SA (attribution, share-alike) so clone is mostly okay—they could use to identify their own source files, unless they're identical to the µCurrent. Open Source in action ... yay.

Sure but he calls it uCurrent, which is confusingly close to the trademarked µCurrent.Also on the silkscreen it DOES say µCurrent, which is not ok, afaik.

This is clearly trademark infringement. Not worth Daves time/money to go after some guy in India, but I'm sure Tindie would consider taking it down.

Quote

Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees (provided that such authorization was within the scope of the licence). Infringement may occur when one party, the "infringer", uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration covers. An owner of a trademark may commence civil legal proceedings against a party which infringes its registered trademark.

This is clearly trademark infringement. Not worth Daves time/money to go after some guy in India, but I'm sure Tindie would consider taking it down.

Not to nitpick but they used the original silkscreen which has µCurrent on it, although they seem to have added stuff: "DoTheDiy". Since the files are under OSHW, I wonder whether removing any trademark on markings is mandatory or if it's freely usable as long as it's part of the OSHW files distribution... See what I'm getting at?

Would it be wiser to remove any trademarks on designs released under the OSHW to avoid any problem of this sort? Somehow I'm wondering whether trademarks and OSHW or creative commons really get together well?

This device is based on the original open source uCurrent design by Dave Jones from eevblog.

The µCurrent page even specifies OSHW and Creative Commons BY/SA (attribution, share-alike) so clone is mostly okay—they could use to identify their own source files, unless they're identical to the µCurrent. Open Source in action ... yay.

This is clearly trademark infringement. Not worth Daves time/money to go after some guy in India, but I'm sure Tindie would consider taking it down.

Not to nitpick but they used the original silkscreen which has µCurrent on it, although they seem to have added stuff: "DoTheDiy". Since the files are under OSHW, I wonder whether removing any trademark on markings is mandatory or if it's freely usable as long as it's part of the OSHW files distribution... See what I'm getting at?Would it be wiser to remove any trademarks on designs released under the OSHW to avoid any problem of this sort? Somehow I'm wondering whether trademarks and OSHW or creative commons really get together well?

Yes, it is not only legally required to remove trademarks, but also common OSHW courtesy not to use someone else's name.If doing so for attribution reason you'd usually do that in the documentation, not on the board.

This is clearly trademark infringement. Not worth Daves time/money to go after some guy in India, but I'm sure Tindie would consider taking it down.

Not to nitpick but they used the original silkscreen which has µCurrent on it, although they seem to have added stuff: "DoTheDiy". Since the files are under OSHW, I wonder whether removing any trademark on markings is mandatory or if it's freely usable as long as it's part of the OSHW files distribution... See what I'm getting at?Would it be wiser to remove any trademarks on designs released under the OSHW to avoid any problem of this sort? Somehow I'm wondering whether trademarks and OSHW or creative commons really get together well?

Yes, it is not only legally required to remove trademarks, but also common OSHW courtesy not to use someone else's name.

Of course it's trademark infringement. What I meant is that it may be safer to remove any trademark in the files we share as authors (especially fabrication files like Gerbers) since the probability of someone using them unmodified is significant, and not necessarily deliberately. Now if they intend on selling something out of them, it's already a different matter for sure.

In this particular case, we can see that 1/ they have modified the files (adding their own "brand") and 2/ they are rather clearly using the trademark and your name as references in hopes of selling more, so this is hard to imagine that it was not deliberate.

This is clearly trademark infringement. Not worth Daves time/money to go after some guy in India, but I'm sure Tindie would consider taking it down.

Not to nitpick but they used the original silkscreen which has µCurrent on it, although they seem to have added stuff: "DoTheDiy". Since the files are under OSHW, I wonder whether removing any trademark on markings is mandatory or if it's freely usable as long as it's part of the OSHW files distribution... See what I'm getting at?

Would it be wiser to remove any trademarks on designs released under the OSHW to avoid any problem of this sort? Somehow I'm wondering whether trademarks and OSHW or creative commons really get together well?

Yes, I've had this discussion with another OSHW creator.His problem was people were selling the design with a block of text deleted, meaning not only is his name removed, but so to is the link to the github where all the documentation is kept.So the buyers get no technical support.

So yes you do need to preempt things by having the OSHW design premade as if a clone.So in Dave's case, the PCB would be marked as being "uA adapter" instead of µCurrent, and state "Original design by Dave Jones"That way branding it as µCurrent requires effort.

Since its US vs. AUS it looks like it only applies within the country, so there is no infringement here (I suppose technically no infringement by the Indian dude too unless he sells to AUS, still a dick move either way). When registering the trademark, it would be possible to apply for an international TM. The US application could be denied as its close to one already in use (the one you have above). I have no idea how this works though, what criteria they would use for a search.

Quote

An Australian trade mark provides protection only within Australia. There are two ways Australian trade mark owners can seek trade mark protection overseas: Via an application filed directly to each country. Via a single international application filed through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) nominating the Madrid Protocol countries in which protection is sought.

uCurrent clone for corporate users? Only $700 plus $70 shipping. New design but at least they accurately cloned the out stock for most of the time part. But at that price I would think that there would be some money to bribe someone to get those capacitors they are lacking, if they had any manufacturing experience at all.

uCurrent clone for corporate users? Only $700 plus $70 shipping. New design but at least they accurately cloned the out stock for most of the time part. But at that price I would think that there would be some money to bribe someone to get those capacitors they are lacking, if they had any manufacturing experience at all.

I wonder what capacitors they can't get. You can still get any size and any (reasonable) value at Digikey. It might not cost 10 cent anymore, but 20 cent, but this shouldn't be much of a problem for a $700 device.

I wonder what capacitors they can't get. You can still get any size and any (reasonable) value at Digikey. It might not cost 10 cent anymore, but 20 cent, but this shouldn't be much of a problem for a $700 device.

I wonder what capacitors they can't get. You can still get any size and any (reasonable) value at Digikey. It might not cost 10 cent anymore, but 20 cent, but this shouldn't be much of a problem for a $700 device.

uCurrent clone for corporate users? Only $700 plus $70 shipping. New design but at least they accurately cloned the out stock for most of the time part. But at that price I would think that there would be some money to bribe someone to get those capacitors they are lacking, if they had any manufacturing experience at all.

I wonder what capacitors they can't get. You can still get any size and any (reasonable) value at Digikey. It might not cost 10 cent anymore, but 20 cent, but this shouldn't be much of a problem for a $700 device.

According to the manual it uses a 48V PSU ( why?) - higher voltage ceramics ar a bigger issue, but still mostly available in the sort of volumes I'd expect them to be building these in

These sub-morons had to resort to stealing someone else's design because they don't have the brains to do anything original themselves. They could even do that right... look at the crap switches and crap banana sockets .

We have an unethical company in Australia called Jaycar which ripped off an Arduino experimenter's kit from a company called Freetronics. I have not walked into a Jaycar store since the scandal broke out, and never will. I work in the electronics industry and most of my engineers and techs have bought stuff from Jaycar in years gone by, but now my company does not don't buy anything from them. There are local ethical alternatives, including Rockby Electronics and Altronics.

The real reason why Trump is punishing China with tariffs is the theft of intellectual property. Trump needs to get a lot tougher. He needs to confiscate the billions of dollars in foreign property and cash the communist leaders have hoarded abroad, and deport their kids studying in the US.

We all need to get tougher and beat up IP and copyright thieves. Don't sympathise with them or give them any justification. Put yourself in the victim's shoes. If you did all the hard work and spent a fortune to create a novel gadget and some prick copied it, using your name or trademark and flooded the market with his cheap ripoff, you'd be pretty upset.

The real reason why Trump is punishing China with tariffs is the theft of intellectual property. Trump needs to get a lot tougher. He needs to confiscate the billions of dollars in foreign property and cash the communist leaders have hoarded abroad, and deport their kids studying in the US.

I know Dave will lock this thread if we get political, but many economists think that raising the tariff actually hurts the US economy:

And the rest of your statements doesn't make sense either. Even if we don't care about the ethical and social implications of deporting people, scientific studies demonstrate, that foreign students help the US economy a lot:

The real reason why Trump is punishing China with tariffs is the theft of intellectual property. Trump needs to get a lot tougher. He needs to confiscate the billions of dollars in foreign property and cash the communist leaders have hoarded abroad, and deport their kids studying in the US.

I know Dave will lock this thread if we get political, but many economists think that raising the tariff actually hurts the US economy:

...And the rest of your statements doesn't make sense either. Even if we don't care about the ethical and social implications of deporting people, scientific studies demonstrate, that foreign students help the US economy a lot:...

Without these students, the US would have only Hollywood stars and football players and US companies like Apple, who needs lots of engineers and other academic people, would soon go bankrupt.

You did not read my post properly, did you. Who said deport the millions of decent Chinese students studying abroad for a better quality of education? I certainly didn't. This isn't politics - it has everything to do with theft on an unprecedented scale and actually doing something to stop it. So what is YOUR solution to the rampant theft of IP right under our noses?

I own a genuine uCurrent Gold. Great little add-on to my test gear. I thought it was innovative, well engineered, and it was the best bang per buck for test gear in a long time. I have borrowed this device several times for work and it has helped solve a number of key measurement issues of extremely low current drains that our regular Fluke, HP and Tektronix test gear just cannot do. I will buy more genuine uCurrent Golds if Dave does another build.

Right, only deport the kids of the communist leaders, this makes much more sense

You already wrote the solution: suing them if they steal IP, which apparently worked for the WiFi IP theft. Doing illegal things like confiscating their property, or raising tariffs, has the opposite effect.

Right, only deport the kids of the communist leaders, this makes much more sense

You already wrote the solution: suing them if they steal IP, which apparently worked for the WiFi IP theft. Doing illegal things like confiscating their property, or raising tariffs, has the opposite effect.

It's a targeted hit against the enemy, minimising collateral damage. The CCP and its PLA are complicit in IP theft. The USA and the EU already targets selected criminals in the Russian government. It works. I agree though that tariffs is not a good solution because it is not a targeted attack - it unfairly punished the masses on both sides who have nothing to do with IP theft.

We need to do everything we can to support those with the brains to innovate, especially in electronics, because not only is it the right thing to do but it encourages more innovation. Piracy in the music and movie industries by self-serving westerners have done damage to talented artists. Ever wondered why there is no longer the plethora of great music that we heard last century; and why there are few really good movies anymore?

That Freetronics ripoff DID end up biting Jaycar on the ass.At the very least, all stores got a memo to pull them from the shelves, and who knows how Dickhead got rid of them from there.Jaycar’s Facebook page also got inundated with nasty messages.